Before You Call This New, Ask Your Education Foundation

A few months ago, a local bank wrote a $100,000 check to the Northwestern Lehigh Educational Foundation. However, this was not a payment for private-school tuition. Instead, this money, given through Pennsylvania's Educational Improvement Tax Credit program, was designated for approved educational needs in the Northwestern Lehigh School District, including STEAM programs, modern teaching tools and classroom improvements. A few months later the Orrstown Bank made a similar EITC contribution, but this was made to the Lancaster Education Foundation. The School District of Lancaster often uses these sorts of donations as grants for programs that expand learning experiences and provide opportunities beyond what traditional state and federal funding can support.

Most importantly, neither example requires a student to leave a public school.

Here at FundEDU, we work with both public and private schools across Pennsylvania, because we know that "education tax credits" and "public schools" are not opposites. While Pennsylvania's EITC program does have a scholarship side, it also allows for qualifying contributions to Educational Improvement Organizations. Put more simply, businesses receive tax credits for qualifying contributions, and then the state's approved EIOs provide financial support to public-school districts across the Commonwealth.

Now, the upcoming federal Education Freedom Tax Credit is not Pennsylvania EITC copied across the country. In particular, Pennsylvania's EIO structure allows donors to support programs operating in or for public schools, whereas the federal credit will work through scholarships awarded to eligible individual students. However, this is the part public-school leaders anywhere in the country should notice: federal guidance directly includes expenses connected with public schools as eligible. The Department of Education gives examples including tutoring at public schools, services for students with disabilities, equipment or uniforms for career-training programs, and after-school enrichment.

So I would start with something public-school foundations already do well, and something that I have already recommended in a previous article.

Make a list.

Pull the grants your foundation funded over the last three years. Pull the requests that did not get funded. Ask principals and teachers what parents are buying themselves. Ask your special education team which services families seek outside the district. Ask your CTE director what equipment, uniforms or supplies become barriers. Ask who is paying for tutoring after a student starts falling behind. In short, instead of asking if your public school could or should support a school choice program, consider what educational costs your families are carrying and whether an outside scholarship could help with them.

Here in Pennsylvania we have been giving public-school leaders a version of that lesson for years. Williamsport's district education foundation, for example, facilitated $33,000 in EITC-supported funding for an eSports arena at its public high school. As I already mentioned, Lancaster uses EITC contributions for innovative district programming. Beyond that, Northwestern Lehigh is putting tax-credit-supported dollars into STEAM and classroom resources.

Once the EFTC is implemented on January 1st, it becomes the mechanism by which federal law allows donors to support public schools all over the country.

This is especially important because public-school families are easy to miss when school choice programs like the EFTC are viewed as segregationist, or just another way to run away from public schools. A parent who likes the neighborhood school is not looking for a voucher, or to change their routine. But there is a very real chance that she may still be looking for a math or language tutor. A student who wants to stay in his high school may still need equipment for a career program. A family may need after-school care badly enough that the cost determines whether a parent can keep a shift.

Those are education problems too.

Public-schools have spent years stretching every penny, and their foundations have been trying to find private dollars for needs that sit outside ordinary district budgets. The federal credit creates another potential source of help, this time through scholarships attached to eligible students rather than grants to a district foundation. So, if I could give one piece of advice to leaders on the public school side, and those running public-school foundation today, I would just say this:

Don’t get caught up in the politics of the federal program. Instead, look at the EFTC as a way of solving the financial gaps in your community, because that's what it can and will do.

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Before You Call This New, Ask Your Education Foundation

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Learn how schools, ED foundations, and donors can use educational tax credits like the PA EITC and the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit.

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